Beer Snobbery

Why It's Not Snobby To Be Into Craft Beer

The popularity of craft beer is growing rapidly around the world and shifting from an underground movement limited to a few rare pubs in big cities to a worthy competitor of mass-market beer. As it grows in popularity, there is a risk that some snobs will sneak aboard the craft-beer bandwagon. My personal experience with beer snobs is fortunately limited to receiving a single derisive comment from a friend when seen drinking a Corona at an event with no better alternative. My ego survived intact, but I did worry for a brief moment that it may be a sign of things to come.

I'm the Chief Beer Enthusiast at The Beer Diaries, a site dedicated to the celebration and promotion of craft beer, and I commit most of my time to "studying" craft beer and filming detailed interviews with brewers (www.youtube.com/thebeerdiaries). But I do have a dark past as a wine collector, and I've been exposed to high-class wine snobbery. One wine-snob story I still distinctly recall is receiving a hearty snort and guffaw from a snobby but uninformed wine drinker in front of a number of peers when I said one of my favorite varietals was Pinot Noir. This took place before the movie Sideways, which celebrated Pinot Noir so effectively that it gained mass-market popularity, was released. I strongly suspect my wine-snob colleague did a flip-flop after the movie, as many snobs tend to look to more senior snobs to set their tastes.

Snobs of any type are interesting creatures. AskMen is home to one of the most delightful and entertaining snobs in the world, the Watch Snob. He's a tremendous prototypical example of a snob: elitist, dismissive and incredibly funny when he's in full stride, provided you don't happen to be the butt of his comments.

Snobs often have privileged knowledge, information and access, as well as a demeaning way of sharing it with people. When a bunch of snobs get together, the one-upmanship contest can reach dizzying levels. The one giant flaw that snobs tend to have is a need to come out on top, usually at someone else's expense. I couldn't imagine something I'd enjoy less while hanging out having a beer with friends than engaging in a competitive and ill-mannered contest of beer knowledge (the veritable pissing match). Frankly, I've never seen one happen in many, many craft beer sessions, so perhaps there's something special about beer that insulates craft beer from snobbery rampant elsewhere.

When you look at beer it's hard not to conclude it is a democratic drink that is truly available to everyone. History provides some great examples supporting this. Did you know that the great pyramids of Egypt were built by workers fueled by beer? The ancient Romans drank beer, though they were the early instigators of the wine-vs.-beer class split in which the rich drank wine and everyone else drank beer. And back in Roman times, the barbarians were the beer drinkers, which makes beer even cooler in my opinion. During the Middle Ages and until brewing become a commercial enterprise in the 1700s, the actual brewing of beer was undertaken by women, and making beer was part of the daily routine due to beer being a safe source of drinking water. It is difficult to be snobby about something that is a basic life necessity.